


Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

by Lise



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mutilation, Season 7 Spoilers, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's back. He's in one piece. That's the problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

For the first couple hours he couldn’t sleep because of the silence. Because it was so quiet that Sam thought he could hear everything and just the sound of his own breathing was distracting.

Sam thought Dean might have been planning to knock him out, by the way he was eyeing him nervously, but thankfully he couldn’t keep going anymore and crashed before that point. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept that soundly in his life.

He woke up midmorning feeling almost human. Dean was out, a note on the table saying he’d gone to get coffee, so Sam grabbed his shaving kit and wandered into the bathroom, sheared away the accumulated beard and got into the shower.

Scrubbing what felt like months worth of dirt (insanity) off his body, Sam happened to glance down at his chest and blinked.

It was like, he thought, in dreams. When you looked at your own hands and they didn’t look quite right, suddenly didn’t feel quite like your hands. _There should be scars,_ his brain said, _here, and here, and here, remember?_ and then Sam had soap in his eyes and the moment was gone, and all that was left of it was a funny creeping sensation down his spine. The feeling of _wrong_ somewhere in his bones.

Then he heard Dean coming in with a, “If you take all the hot water I swear,” sounding almost unnervingly cheerful, and pushed it out of his mind.

* * *

Dean seemed to be deliberately not thinking about having left Castiel in a mental institution with a demon for a bodyguard. With _Meg_ for a bodyguard. Sam didn’t remind him, but it was in the back of his mind.

That and a lot of other things nudging for his attention. Looking at his hands, _too whole. Map of scars like branches spreading out, remember, he spent a whole day on your hands once-_

They hunted. Dean kept looking for Dick, and Sam kept trying to make sure Dean didn’t get himself killed. It was…it wasn’t better. But the way Dean watched him had changed, from wary to something else. If it hadn’t seemed egotistical Sam would have gone for _grateful._ They’d come too close, and both of them knew it.

Sam was grateful too. Really, he was. For the silence and the peace and at least he was down to one voice (his own) whispering doubts and fears and dark dark dark things into his brain.But that was nothing new.

Except.

Now, with the space to think, he felt too clean. Too whole. Unreal and ungrounded, like he wasn’t really here, didn’t really exist at all.

 _How fucked up is it,_ Sam thought, looking at himself in the mirror to remind himself that he was _supposed_ to be in one piece, _that at this point it feels right to be in pieces, and it’s being whole that you can’t handle?_

Lucifer, he thought, would have had something to say about that. But Lucifer was gone, and his head was quiet, and what he had was too much space inside his head to think about the dissonance between the body in pieces he’d spent centuries getting to know and this one, that he didn’t think he knew at all.

* * *

It wasn’t so much that his skin was unblemished. He had accumulated plenty of familiar scars over the past two years. It was just that they were in the wrong places. The map that Lucifer had carved into him, Sam’s touchstone because that was all you had after a while, the scars, sometimes the only reminder that you’d ever been real at all and anything other than something sculpted out of pain-

Gone. Obliterated like they’d never been there.

On one of their side hunts, taking down a pissed off housewife tied to some cutlery, Sam took a knife graze to the side and was almost sick with the sudden howl of _wrong wrong wrong not there that’s not the right place_ that surged through him in an overwhelming rush.

He bent double, trying to breathe rather than retch, and the feeling passed, but it left him unnerved enough that he didn’t sleep easily. Lay looking up at the ceiling and going over in painstaking detail – tracing lines on his own body that should have been there. _Here the knife and here the razor for a different line, here no blade at all and here the ragged edges of a burn-_

Like a rhythm, he fell asleep to it. Counting scars instead of sheep. Scars that only existed inside his own head. A map more familiar than the United States

 _You’re my masterpiece,_ he’d said, Sam remembered, touch light and cold, brushing away the dampness of tears from his cheeks. _And you are beautiful,_ and Sam had believed it, from him, body humming with the depths of his sincerity.

It was like he was many things stuffed uncomfortably back into one skin and didn’t _fit._ Same pieces failing to make the same whole, or maybe somewhere in the carving he’d splintered like a mirror. _Ex unum, pluribus._

_You can’t put a mirror back together with your bare hands. There’ll always be seams no matter how much glue you use._

Where are mine? Sam wondered drowsily. It was a rhetorical question he half expected an answer to, but his head was empty now, and if Lucifer had known all the answers Sam didn’t know any of them.

* * *

It wasn’t even intentional, to begin with. Just a slip when he was sharpening one of the knives, a flash of blooming blood just under his wrist, and the feeling of a puzzle piece slotting neatly into place. Brief and visceral satisfaction because just for a moment things fell perfectly into line.

There was, it occurred to Sam, an obvious solution to this disconnect of his. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“Dude,” Dean’s voice cut in. “What are you staring at?” Sam wrapped a hand around his wrist and clamped down to stop the bleeding, getting up to go to the bathroom to wash it out.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just slipped.”

“Sloppy, Sam,” Dean said, with a lopsided version of his old _I’m giving you shit_ grin.

“Yeah, well,” Sam groused, in form, “Fuck you.”

It healed fast – just a nick, really, more than anything – and left a line, faint and already fading. He sat on the bed a couple days later, Dean out of the room to grab breakfast (and probably an alcohol chaser) and rubbed his thumb over the thin white marking.

Another day and it would be gone entirely, only there in his memory, like all the others. Like the feeling when climbing down a ladder and groping for another rung and it just wasn’t there.

He stood up and went to his duffel. Started by peeling off his clothes and folding them neatly on the bed. He could probably be done before Dean even got back.

Sam picked the knife with the best edge and went into the bathroom. He rocked forward and then back on the balls of his feet, closed his eyes for a moment to visualize everything. Raised lines connecting and interconnecting like railways or branches.

He opened his eyes and set the edge to skin.

Began to draw.

* * *

Dean got back earlier than Sam expected. Sam heard the door open and close and Dean’s, “Sam?”

“Just a second,” he called. Heard Dean set down the coffee and a bag and pad over to the bathroom door, and then stop.

“Hey,” said Dean. His voice sounded a little odd, suddenly. “Sam.” Sam paused. His hands were getting sticky.

“You’re back early,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “I don’t really think so. Can you put the knife down?”

Sam sighed, slightly exasperated. He’d been almost done. Just a few more details. Dean sounded upset, though, and maybe something had come up, so he set the knife down and turned around from the mirror and looked at his brother. “Yeah,” he said. “What is it?”

Dean was looking at him with a strange expression on his face. He looked like he was trying to be deliberately calm, and Sam felt a flicker of fear in his stomach. “Did something happen?”

“Did something-” Dean swore, under his breath. “Sam,” he said, very slowly. “You’re bleeding.”

His hands really felt rather unpleasant. He would have to wash them before finishing. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. I know.” His head was starting to feel a little light. Maybe he’d taken too long. “I’ll clean.”

Dean blinked twice, rapidly. “That doesn’t actually.” He stopped. “That’s not actually my point.” He shifted, took a step closer, then stopped, like he thought Sam might be dangerous, or something.

 _He doesn’t know,_ Sam reminded himself, remembering suddenly, and he relaxed. Dean was confused. Well. He could fix that. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

Dean made a small, strangled noise. “ _You know what you’re doing._ ”

“It’s not Cas’s fault,” Sam hastened to say. “I mean, it’s not that big a mistake. He just didn’t bring me back exactly. You know. Right.” He felt himself sway a little, and caught himself on the counter. Maybe he could finish this tomorrow. Sam glanced down at what he’d finished so far and smiled, a little proud of himself, of how clearly he remembered how everything was supposed to be. The lines were messy for now, but blood would wash and the scars were the important part. “So I’m just fixing it.”

“Oh god,” said Dean, like his voice was lodging in his throat. “Oh fucking-“ For a second, Sam thought he was going to cry, which didn’t make _sense._ His jaw went tight. His expression locked down. “Okay,” Dean said. And then, “Sit down. Stop talking. And. Jesus. Jesus.”

“Dean,” Sam said, gently. “It’s fine. This is just how it should be.”

Dean looked like he wanted to throw up. “I’m serious,” he said. “Sit down. Stop talking. And put on some clothes. I’m getting the surgical tape.”

* * *

“Your coffee’s getting cold,” Sam pointed out, and bit down on his lip as Dean splashed antiseptic in the last of the cuts over the top of his shoulder and started taping it closed. It hurt – he hurt – even for the painkillers Dean had pushed on him. Dean twitched like he wanted to punch something.

“So is yours,” he said, flatly. “But I think we’re both a little _busy._ ”

Sam sighed. His chest and shoulders stung, but it wasn’t so bad. He’d been careful. “You’re pissed.”

“I’m not pissed,” Dean said. Flatly. Angrily. Sam waited. Dean shifted, finally, and pulled back. “I’m not,” he repeated. “Just. Can I leave you alone at all?”

“Yes,” Sam said firmly. “You can.” Dean made a small, brief, and thoroughly exasperated noise, and was silent for a few moments.

“You’re gonna scar,” he said, tightly.

“Yeah,” Sam said, relaxing a little. He’d been pretty sure he knew how to make sure of it, but it was still reassuring. “I know.”

“Jesus-” Dean’s hand pressed briefly, warm, against his shoulder, his fingers digging in. “Sam. You’re not. You can’t. –you were _better._ ”

“I am,” Sam said calmly.

“Not if you’re still hurting yourself to-”

Sam didn’t suppress the frutstrated huff fast enough, and for a moment thought Dean really would haul back and punch him. “No,” he said quickly. “That’s not – the pain is incidental. It’s about the marking.”

Dean’s expression went a few shades darker as he shifted around to look Sam in the eye. “ _Sam,_ ” he said menacingly. Sam smiled ruefully.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he said. “I know it’s not…what you want. But I’m not meant to be whole anymore.”

Dean stood up jerkily and turned away. Muttered something under his breath. Turned back a moment later, expression blank. His voice was hoarse and harsh. “Jesus, Sam. What am I supposed to-”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Except apparently that’s not enough!” Dean’s voice rose sharply in volume, cracked.

“Dean,” Sam said. “It’s _always_ enough. This isn’t about…there’s nothing _you_ can do. This is…this is just _me._ ”

“Yeah,” Dean said, voice dropping again, settling into a monotone, “That’s what freaks me the fuck out, that this is you, cutting yourself to pieces and you don’t see anything wrong with that, cause-” he cut off.

Sam rubbed a thumb down the back of his hands. He hadn’t done there. Wasn’t sure he could; it might affect his grip, ability to shoot a gun. “Dean,” he said. “Trust me with this. I know what I’m doing. Please. I’m just doing what I have to.”

Dean’s fists clenched. “Trust you- _Christ_ , Sam, you told _me_ to try not to die-”

“I’m not going to-”

“ _How do you know that?_ ” Dean yelled, over him. “How easy would it be to make a mistake? This isn’t – _this isn’t Hell,_ Sam, you bleed like anyone else, bleed and go into shock and die and we are _out_ of chances and resurrections, and if you kill yourself because of some weird fucked up thing in your head that’s it, _I’m_ done, you can’t expect me to-”

Sam blinked, very nearly stricken. He shut his mouth. Dean didn’t even seem to notice.

“—you know what I thought?” he snapped, taking a step back toward Sam, closing into his space where he was sitting on the bed. “I opened the door. I could smell blood all the way from here, and I thought you were _dead,_ I thought maybe Cas’ quick fix really had been that quick and you were gone and _I hadn’t even fucking been there_ and-”

“Dean,” Sam managed, in a relatively small voice. Dean stopped. Stared at Sam, breathing hard. Sam swallowed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I just had to-”

“Shut,” Dean snarled, “The fuck up,” and between one moment and the next Dean was kissing him, fierce and ferocious and desperate. Sam was still a mess of blood and Dean’s hands where they were gripping his upper arms were tacky and that was all he could think about, that and the fact that Dean’s lips were chapped and his face seemed too hot.

And the shuddery start-stop feeling of another piece sliding into place.

“Don’t,” Dean said, when he pulled back, looking a little wild-eyed, almost halfway to terrified. “—just don’t,” and Sam didn’t give himself time to think before saying, “Okay,” lifting one hand to rest against the side of Dean’s neck, hardly even surprised. “Okay.”

He hadn’t finished. But it could be enough.

A road map to keep him grounded in himself. A rope of scar tissue to tie him down.

“God, Sam,” Dean was saying, crowded into the personal space he didn’t have, fingers skating over between the (cuts) scars like he was filling in the blank spaces. Dean had always been his anchor, after all.

It could be enough.


End file.
